Archive for the ‘Current Affairs’ Category

Game Change

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

Back in 1986 I attended a personal development workshop called Money and You. The facilitator was Robert Kiyosaki. (Author of the Rich Dad Poor Dad series). The driving impulse to attend was a desire to make more money. I suspect I also wanted to understand the money system, as curiosity has been one of my main values. The experience was life changing, but not for the reasons I anticipated. For the next eight years I was involved with Excellerated Learning, the company behind Money and You. I attended all of their events, and volunteered as a logistics person for many more. It was a very large part of my life. I made some of my best friends through this experience, people I still connect with today. I was introduced to the work of Buckminster Fuller, who has become my number one mentor, a role he still holds 25 years later.

Each year I attended the Global Leaders Program, which was an annual event held in the first week in January on the big island of Hawaii. One of these seven day events was dedicated to studying Bucky, using the video recording made of him delivering 21 hours of his life’s work just before he died.

Most times I love Bucky and his dignity, courage and breadth of work. Sometimes his principles, principles I hold dear to my own life, drive me nuts. They challenge the heck out of me.

We ‘emerge through emergency’…honestly Bucky, sometimes I would like to emerge through luxury and abundance. I am over the seat of the pants stuff.

Or..

“We either make money or we make sense, because the two are mutually exclusive.” Boy have I sat with that one for years…still trying to figure it out…

And the cornerstone to my life…on integrity…to do what is spontaneously arousable from within you for the highest good for the highest number of people….

Interestingly, while I did learn how to ‘make money’ I chose not to. The methods of doing this never rocked my world. To make money for the sake of making money never made sense to me. Where was my passion in that, my life force energy? The score was not enough. While there was a part of me that yearned for the stuff..houses, clothes, travel, fine dining…the yearning was not as strong as the yearning to uncover/discover the way I was designed to express myself in the world and in doing so, add my unique value.

In October 2006 I was in the USA. In the space of one week two significant events occurred. I was introduced to Bernard Lietaer by my friend and colleague, Christopher Cooke. During this conversation Bernard, a world renowned economist and a Jungian Analyst, explained his concurrent currency, the terra. My jaw hit the floor when it became apparent that by introducing this currency people would shift their thinking and actions from short term to long term in a blink of an eye…and all based on greed. In other words, they would increase their ‘wealth’ by thinking long term. Why did my jaw hit the floor…in my world of work, I work with human behaviour change. I have trouble getting people to change the way they brush their teeth, yet alone make large scale changes such as switching to long term thinking! I left this conversation with my head spinning.

About a week later I was running in St Louis, listening to audio on my ipod. I listen to hours of audio, interviews, lectures etc. This day I heard from a guy by the name of David Martin, now a member of our team in The Constellation. David is a very powerful speaker and story teller. He described, not as a prediction, but as a series of events that were falling due, the entire global economic crisis. (Remember this was late 2006).

From these two events I left the USA realising my understanding of the global economic system was very poor. I was determined to become educated. For the past four years I have read books on the economy and articles on global events and the economy, with a great commitment to learning. I also went back to Bucky’s work on the global economy, work I had previously dismissed as being too much like conspiracy theories. Re-reading Bucky’s ‘Grunch Of Giants,’ and the other material, I came to the recognition that I was still very far from understanding the global economic system.

Here is how I describe it….If the global economic system was a language, like Mandarin, I am probably able to count to ten fluently. (My understanding of the system is enough for me to count to ten, even after all of these years of diligent study.) Most people in the world probably can count to one, two or three. The leader of Australia would be lucky to be able to count to ten, Obama may be able to count, but he cannot speak the whole language. Indeed, I gestimate that about 1% of the population speaks the language of the global economic system fluently. (As in they really understand it completely.) Of this 1%, the majority of these people have an invested interest in keeping the rest of the world in the dark.

The very scary aspect of this is that people are making decisions about the future of humanity  without understanding the very system that it is based upon. Also, many people are out there working at solutions without even beginning to understand the current reality. From a medical point of view, this would be like prescribing a medication, or surgery, without knowing the diagnosis.

Over the last year an idea has started to incubate. I have become aware that for the last 25 years one of the consistent threads in my life has been around understanding the global economic/value system. Further, I now know three people who do understand the system, while simultaneously also having the wisdom and integrity to want to bring light to this system for the good of all humanity, and not just a select few. Two of these people I have so far engaged in my idea.

In the last few months, my idea has begun to germinate. I sat down with a clean sheet of paper and asked myself what is the ONE thing that I would choose to do that animates me more than any other thing AND would meet the conditions Bucky set…to do the highest good for the highest number of people. There is no question that my ‘idea’ is that one thing.

Here is my seed idea. ( I identify it as a seed idea because great ideas are supposed to grow and emerge, and in the process change form. I am not attached to the form of the idea, but to the intention behind it.)

The Intention

First, to bring light to the current reality of the global economic system, and secondly, in so doing with exquisite care and wisdom, to support the crafting and co-creation of new models that honour the value and contribution of people, the environment, the future, communities, enterprise, and all the subsequent field effects, and for generations hence.

How?

Initially to bring a small group of people together for five days, including the three people I know who understand this system, plus a few other people such as a cell biologist, and a master game designer. This conversation will address the following questions.

What do we create, to be delivered to whom, how, and at what effect?

And then to create the first prototype.

Intrinsic in the design must be the awareness of the field effect of this offering. For example, if everyone in the USA/Australia understood the current economic system tomorrow, what would happen?

I believe we would have a revolution, blood on the streets, violence, mayhem, massive stock losses, etc. We would also have serious depression, denial, and a bunch of people focused entirely on capitalising on the situation through greed and blind opportunistic tendencies.

The question what we do create and delivered to whom is one requiring wisdom and deep consideration. How we manage the roll out and ongoing effects is also critical.

What I see, which is subject to evolve, is the creation of a three day experiential game. Specifically, what I mean by experiential, is that at the completion of the game, participants would leave with an embodied, not just an intellectual, understanding of the system.

I see a large space with a map of the world on the floor, and different forms of trading etc going on. People to people, country to country. However, I am very clear that I can only count to 10, so I am not the intelligence behind the game. I am clear that I am the engine room. I have the commitment, energy and passion to drive this project and hold the space for it to emerge.

I also see that we invite about 20 students from around the world to apply to participate in the first game, with the other invited participants. These students would participate at no charge, with the understanding they would return to other games as volunteer logistics support. By repeating the game, even as a logistics person, their learning would deepen.

I see that the initial participants would be thoughtfully selected and invited. Who are the people in the world who are critical acupuncture points for this kind of embodied knowledge? They must also have wisdom and deep respect for the integrity of this knowledge.

A Round Two game would be created for past participants to reconvene to now play for solutions. These solutions may be small in origin but large in effect, they may be concurrent to the current system, like Bernard’s Terra, or they may involve whole system change. We cannot know what will emerge until the wisdom is invited into the game.

Genius can arise from an environment where we start with Universe- when we know exactly what we are dealing with.

Why do I see this as the biggest game of all?

The world has some unquestionably serious issues to address. Climate change, peak oil, energy, population growth, food security, health, water, poverty, for example.

The connector in all of these is our value system. The global economic system. If we do not really understand this system, its shadow and light, then any change is not a real change…we are simply moving deck chairs around on the Titanic.

Why is it that masters of making money from money, without adding any true value to the world, get paid obscene fee’s, while the person teaching our children get paid next to nothing? Why are our measures so narrow? When will be start to include the all in cost of our actions. The cost to the environment, to communities, to the future? Plus the love economy…all the unpaid work that has not been considered ‘of value’. Is it acceptable that our superannuation funds grow because the companies making profit are exploiting both environment and communities in remote regions of the world, so we can have a happy retirement?

I have a sense that all of my years of work, exploration, heart ache, searching, kissing frogs…has lead to this point. This is what I am here to do.

What happens next?

Specifically I need a philanthropist or benefactor (or several) who is as inspired by this vision as I am and wants to see it get off the ground. I need funding to create the initial gathering, plus funding to keep my bills paid while I do this. I have never sort this kind of support before. Long term readers will know that my belief system has been built on supporting myself in entirety. The last few blogs have indicated the journey I am on. Invoking the feminine, allowing, working with co-creation, inviting support in the form of finances from others without having to ‘earn a living’. (Still based on bringing value, because I could no more not work as not breath.)

As my dear friend Pauline said, imagine how much I could do if I did not need to worry about earning a living, and could get on with creating these kinds of global artifacts that will add value to all. This is where my energy is. Circling back to Bucky, his principle was based on committing to do what was spontaneously arousable from within you for the highest good for all. I have recognised that I have not been doing this in full integrity. I have been working on earning a living. And even while I have loved my work, it has been animated from the need to earn a living as a prime motivator. This default need has kept me playing small. It has been, in its own strange way, my own security blanket. As I enter my fiftieth year it is time for me to play the biggest game I can find, to use all of my hard earned skills and talents, to bring my energy, passion and ‘can do’ attitude to this project and the other extraordinary projects The Constellation are working on.

I do actually see that the Game will be profitable. However, I am clear that I am the engine, and when we gather to bring this to life, we have to allow what needs to emerge to emerge. Therefore, the initial seed funding needs to be based on the possibility of zero financial return. Major social and world future return would have to be enough for the philanthropic investment.

In the mean time, I am continuing to animate this. I am working with my team from The Constellation, plus consulting with the people who have the knowledge to make this work. We are discussing who to invite to the first meeting to get this built. Who needs to be there?

Where there is clear intention, high commitment, super energy and intrinsic animation, water part.

Let me know your thoughts on any of this…and if you know of anyone, or can help, let me know.

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Crisis? What crisis?

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

As a student of history (and I mean a home grown student, not a graduate of any school of history), it occurs to me that there have been many times in the history of Universe, and specifically in the history of human kind in Universe, when we have been faced with unprecedented crises that portended the end of life as we know it.

Currently we have the impending event of 2012.  Whatever this date holds, it correlates with  the other major issues such as the  converging crises of the economy, the environment and peak oil.

Yet I wonder what it felt like in 1941/42/43/44 for millions of people around the world? Did this not seem like the end of the world? Son’s and daughters dying in strange places, the threat of take over of nations by Germans or Japanese, (not to mention how life was experienced by the Japanese and Germans) rationing, bombing, fear 24/7. I cannot imagine it, but I could imagine that it was very scary.

Then the cold war, and the constant fear of nuclear annihilation. Children trained at schools to ‘duck for cover!’

We can wind back the clock to many points in history and find apocalyptic events. How would life have been when the black plague was killing millions? Or when the inquisition was in full assault? Some estimate up to 6 million women and girls were killed over a period of history for being witches! (using intuition, herbs to heal, regular women’s stuff.. etc)

I am not saying we are in unprecedented times. Each crisis is unique. However, it seems to me that in each critical period there is an egoic response that owns the crisis as being the very biggest, most serious of all of histories crises.

If we truly believe we live in an evolving, emergent Universe, then expecting and experiencing change is the norm. The difference with our current era is that for the first time we are becoming conscious of our consciousness.

This is a good thing, a healthy next step. It offers more hope than ever before, not more fear.

If I were God, and if the role of Universe was to determine if humans could evolve to a level where there was 100 percent success for all in eternally regenerative Universe, then I would probably create a confluence of such events that demanded that we transcend our “I”, our individual survival oriented small egoic self, and discover that the only way we can actually rise above the potential impending disasters, is to collaborate.

Therefore I look upon this era as an exciting time. Pandora’s box has been open for a long time now. The contagion and pestilence has been running riot for thousands of years. And the whisper of hope is calling from the depths, stronger than ever before because it now brings with it consciousness.

Enough talk about the crisis in this and that. This is fear talking. And the perpetuation of fear. We do not need any more fear, unless it serves to motivate you.

Yes we have work to do. Its good work. It learning from our mistakes and building new models that render the old obsolete. Let’s focus on the opportunity and creativity that this time brings. It asks the best from us. We all have something to contribute that is of value at this time, whether it is raising healthy, resilient children, or finding a cure for malaria.

Instead of getting sucked into the noise of fear and impending doom, let us roll up our sleeves and get to work on creating the kind of systems, structures, tools, businesses, communities, families and relationships that support the whole.

And when we are done, and have grown lazy and complacent again, as sure as the sun rises, there will be another crisis. Hallelujah. Its called evolution!

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Do we live in a sufficient Universe?

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010

What if there is more than enough for everyone? And you not only believed it, you lived it?

In an earlier article I talked about our societal enmeshment in the scarcity principle. We are so caught up in the model of scarcity without even knowing that we are caught.

Fear of our own security and protection, and of having ‘enough’ drive most of our thinking, acting and being. The tragedy is that this fear is so ‘normal’ we do not even know we are in it.

In my life so far as I have worked to release myself from the grip of the illusion of scarcity, I have had good days and bad days.

Good days are days when I am connected to source. I feel positive, optimistic, and I see abundance.

Bad days are when I have fear running. There is not enough…money, time, love, years, sleep, time, money…did I mention those?

Last week I thought about this question…

What if there was more than enough for everyone? More than enough food, air, water, time, love, money, sleep, safety, comfort….?

This then raised the next question…is it true that there is enough?

Well, lets look at that.

Is there enough time? Yes…we get to choose how we spend our time doing what matters. The illusion of not enough time is simply an illusion. If you have 15 minutes to get ready in the morning it will take you 15 minutes. If you have an hour, it will take you an hour.

Is there enough energy? Yes…despite the propagation of fear around our energy supplies, we have more than enough energy from the sun and other renewable resources to give every person on the planet more than they will need. The gap between our technology efficiency is diminishing every day.

Is there enough money? Yes..this is a really interesting question, and in my unequivocal answer of yes I have to give a bit more detail to a quite complex issue. At one level, if you think of money as the stuff (mostly electronic) that circulates the globe every day, is there enough for every human on the planet to live well? Certainly. Some hundreds of trillions of dollars, which is so much that no one really can grasp it.  Problem is that the money gets pooled in a few places, and doesn’t really circulate. When we sit on our foot for a while and then stand up, our foot doesn’t function because the circulation has been cut off. Similarly, pooling money in a few places on the earth body doesn’t allow healthy function. We get stagnation, decay and breakdown in certain areas.

Money also gets directed to other places with questionable value, like the money spent on weapons of killingry. If this money was directed towards livingry, as Bucky would say, hunger would be solved world wide in a matter of weeks.

And if we took responsibility for out health, as I mentioned in an article last week, that would also free up huge amounts of money to be directed to other areas that are in need.

So there is no shortage of this stuff called money.

To get just a little more below the surface of this issue, if we look at what we do on a day to day basis that adds value to the world, is there enough value to be added that warrants an exchange of value? In other words, do you do work that adds real value? (Moving derivatives around the world on a computer does not add real value.) If you are working at something that adds value to others, then there is always the place for exchange.

How about food? Is there enough food? Certainly for some people in the world there is not enough food. However, that is not because there is not enough food globally, but that there is not enough food locally. Again, the system is stagnated. In parts of the world we are dying of obesity, in other parts we are dying of starvation. We criticize the Wall Street bankers for greed while the middle and lower class suffer, but are we any better? We stuff our faces with too much food while our cousins in other parts of the world die of hunger. Is this not also greed? As is stuffing our faces with food that has little to no nutritional value and becoming unhealthy. Just another form of greed.

And water, is there enough? Again, in some places water is a scarce resource. But when we finally learn to manage our resources in a respectful and healthy way, we have enough water. Bucky created homes in the 1940’s that managed on several liters of water every day for all house hold chores. Its not the lack of water that is the issue, its our carelessness in its use.

What I began to realise as I thought about this question was that there is enough. The key  is to stop thinking locally only, and to start to consider our global actions.

At a global level there is enough money, food, water, energy….we do live in a sufficient Universe. Sure we need a game change, but there is enough.

The scarcity principle is a myth of seeing ourselves as isolated, as individuals competing for. When we step back and look at the whole, starting with Universe first, we see that there is enough. That if we work together, collaborate, share, care for each other, there is more than enough.

Does this collaborative and comprehensively considerate action allow for creativity, individualism, personal success, entrepreneurialism? Is there a space for this? Yes…there is so much to learn, and explore and discover about how we inhabit our earth in a way that is sustainable for all. There are so many wonderful things we have yet to create that will enrich lives everywhere. It is time for the biggest hit of creativity innovation ever. But this doesn’t mean that I get to create and you get to go hungry.

And before you jump to conclusions, I am not talking about socialism here. I am talking about something that allows creativity, entrepreneurialism and such, but without the gluttony, and certainly without it costing others their health, money, environment and livelihood. Truly, how many cars, or houses, or TV’s , or ?? is enough for one person?

Scarcity is based on win/lose. I win, you lose. I eat, you go hungry.

Sufficiency is based on win win win. I win, you win, the family, the nation, the environment..wins.

Having considered all of these questions I decided that I do indeed live in a sufficient and abundant Universe. There is enough, more than enough.

Now the question gets down to the next level, below the scarcity and into my worthiness.  Do I allow myself to experience enoughness? No just intellectually, but in an embodied way? Am I worthy of enough?

I will keep you posted on this one. Let me just say its a big one.

In the mean time, I ask you to really consider that we do….you do…I do…live in a sufficient Universe. If this is true, and you really do believe it is true, how will you show up differently?

How would you act, think, believe and behave differently knowing that there is enough?

And what area do you feel the most lack? Love, money, time, sex, security, friends, intimacy….?

Do ask yourself of this is true…really true that there is lack in this part of your life?

Let me know your thoughts, opinions, questions, experiences..


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GRUNCH of Giants- reflections on Bucky, precession and economic hit men

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

Of the many great things that age brings us, one of them is the ability to reflect on the path of our life.

When I was 17 years old I read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. It was as if some new door had been opened. I was completely seduced. Remember this was back in the 70’s, when the goal of high achievers like me was simply to build empires, with little to zero regard to the cost to anything or anyone as a consequence.

To be moved from thinking Ayn Rand and her philosophy was the smartest gig in town, to being introduced to my main guy, Bucky, 10 years later. How brilliant is the Universe to be conspiring that? For many years I was caught in the trap of wanting to be an empire builder. Isn’t this how society measured your worth? How much money and stuff and status you had? Bucky challenged the world of Ayn Rand. He really pulled the rug out from under my diamond studded shoes. However, even today I still love Ayn’s independent confident women characters. (Yes, they may be ball breakers, and it has been a long while since I have read Ayn Rand, so I may still be under a spell of memory…but I do recall at the time I was inspired by these women who wrote their own rules and came out from behind the apron skirts. Those who know me well would not be surprised to hear this.)

I used to think Bucky’s writing about money, the economy, and his GRUNCH of Giants (Gross Universal Cash Heist) was a bit too conspiracy theory for me. “Bucky’s weakness” thought I.

After my many discussions with Dave Martin, and my life long quest to really understand at and embodied level the global financial system, and value, I returned to GRUNCH last week, for about the forth time. And having just read John Perkins, “Hoodwinked”, the message is the same. No, its not a conspiracy, but a system built on the insatiable desire for greed and power, at the cost of anything, by a small group of people.  The real cost, the poverty of most of the world. The loss of pristine environments. Endless debt. It is tragic.

Even more tragic is that highly educated people living in the Western world have no idea this has been going on. I am an example of exactly that tragedy. When I graduated from six years of University, and started working for myself, I did not even know that I was supposed to pay tax out of my earnings. My mother, the business woman, had to give me “the talk”. I was shocked, not because of my ignorance, but that in six years of attending University, no one even thought to mention this! Sure, I had subjects to learn about the science I was mastering in, but where was the practical class on how to manage a business and life and survive in the world? This little episode of uncovering ignorance was one of the keys that started my quest to know about how the system worked.

It is almost comic that the second key was my greed and hunger to build an empire. For it was through attending the “Money and You” program with Robert Kiyosaki back in 1986 that I was introduced to Bucky. The comedy is that I attended because I wanted to make more money. The precessional effect, (the Universe’s main effect) was that I was catapulted on a trajectory that insisted that part of my journey is to really ‘get’ what is going on with the system. While I am still in my student days, I am far less naive. (And by the way, I never did build an empire, or become insanely rich with dollars. But what I have become is ever more grateful for the most amazing life I have, and the richness I am surrounded with. And learning what is of true value. The things that matter most to me. My relationships, nature, beauty, music, life, dancing…the sun on my skin..priceless.)

In his usual inimitable way, Bucky said that the GRUNCH of giants and their very actions of raping and pillaging the worlds people and resources, has of course its own precessional effect. In other words, the side effect of their actions may be the very action that reveals all that is NOT true. This will be a good thing. Painful maybe, as people realise  that their presumed “wealth” is not really of any value.

For example some things that are not true.. there are no solids. There is no up and down in Universe. Your house price doesn’t rise. (The value of your dollar goes down.) There is no “there” that things can be thrown away to. The real cosmic costs are always decreasing. Price increases are simply a part of the game and have no relation to value…..

I am offering here the tame version of Bucky’s writing. If you really want to rock your world, get a copy of GRUNCH and take your time to read it. I am mindful that by sharing some of his more provocative thoughts without the necessary context, the field effect on you, the reader, may not be desirable. It has taken me 20 years to start to really get that he was writing truth. Am I a slow leaner? Maybe. More likely, it has taken 20 years for me to be willing to throw away all I have been told and start to look, see and check it out for myself.

What does this all mean in the long run? Well, back to precession. If the side effect of the economic hit men John Perkins writes about is that we come to our sense, finally, and wake up…this will be a good thing. I am not anti capitalism. I am anti a small few being able to get away with robbery, murder, environmental disaster, thoughtlessness, etc so they can have more power and more stuff. It is not right that I live in luxury while others starve to death. How can that ever be right?

What does this mean for me? That I keep on my quest. To learn the truth, to live the truth, to support others in their truth. And to do so with passion and integrity, and to keep doing it, every day.

It is a joyous, sometimes scary, fabulous adventure, and like that box of chocolates, I am never sure what I am going to get. Whatever that is, it is always significant. As someone wise observed, on more than one occasion, there are no small things.

There are no small things. No small actions. Its all a miracle. Amazing…this thing called life.

*photo by  Dnnya17

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Boy do we make things complex….

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009

Take climate change for example. Yep there is a lot of competing evidence one way of another, and sure, there are so many stakeholders with so many fingers in so many pies….but really guys, have we forgotten the basics?

The giant elephant in the room is that we, and I mean all of us, need to take responsibility for the field effects of our every action and thought. Its time. This is the game we play when we grow up. We throw away the childish ways of not knowing what happens afterwards, and we start to consider the all in consequence. No longer is it OK to blame, or to condone bad behaviour, by anyone. Our cavalier way of life, with no regard for the short and long term consequence, is what is in question here. And the effect of being more thoughtful and considerate, no matter if climate change is a myth or real, will be a win for all. Sure some big corporates may loose a bucket of money, but if they were smart, they can stop this from happening by being adaptive in their activity, and proactive in what they produce and how they do it.

We get so caught in the gory details, distracted from the real issue.  The real issue  doesn’t just rest with the government, or with big business, or with anyone else. It rests with our own level of CARE for all that we do, and our understanding that what I do, affects you, whether you are in the same room, or across the planet. And this is the issue. From which we can try to run, but we simply have no where to run away to, because there is no “there” that is away from us except in the very immediate short term. Eventually “there” will find us because to this point we all live on the same planet, and breath the same air.

In the early 80’s, Buckminster Fuller did the math. Humanities present rate of total energy consumption amounts to only one four-millionth of one percent of the rate of energy income. In other words, there is so much energy available to us every day, more than anyone could ever use, from the sun, wind, tides etc..all renewable. We do not have an energy crisis, we have a distribution crisis. And in this lies so many opportunities.

Bucky also said that using up our fossil fuel stores is like living off our savings account, when we have so much deposited into our cash account. We are going deeper into the red when we have a huge supply right at our fingertips. Waiting, waiting, for us to wise up. And human ingenuity…well of course we can find the solution to how to use renewable energy in a most efficient way…

As David Martin says so well in his great blog post, while all the distracting hoopla is going on about CO2, and cap and trade, and parts per million, few people are focused on the real conversations. For example, what if we found a better way to get energy, no matter what the source, from point A to the consumer. As its stands, the way it is distributed, close to 80% of the original energy is lost! What if this was reduced to 10%? That would be the single best action we could take. So obvious, yet no one seems to be focused on this.

It seems our focus and our energy is pointed in the wrong direction. And I say this literally and figuratively.

This seems to be our biggest dilemma. Our addiction to focusing on the drama and the noise. Instead of stepping back and getting perspective. See what is really going on. Taking time to consider the whole. Look from this place to the obvious..what is missing, where are the opportunities, what am I not seeing? This was one of Bucky’s main arguments, which is built around the principle of Synergy. That we simply must start with the whole first.

Instead we get caught in the swamp. All the noise and its endless attractions and distractions. Rather like we do in our own lives, where doing email, or going on facebook, or gossiping in the corridor, getting caught up in the noise of life, is easier than doing what we know in our hearts needs to be done, and often that means stepping away from the noise and getting some clear perspective, or cleaning up our own act, whether it is around our diet, our energy use, our carelessness…

Take the whole debate on obesity. Apparently there was story of a lady in Australia who lost 85 kgs (187 lbs) because she started doing moderate exercise and gave up junk food! No other fads or gimmicks. Well, of course she lost weight by doing this. It really is this simple. And yet we have an industry that make billions out of gimmicks. Why? Because we all want the easy path that doesn’t require that we modify our behaviour. Heaven forbid that we live a healthy lifestyle! I mean, that would mean I would have to take responsibility for my own health? I would have to learn about healthy food and cooking, get in touch with my body like I haven’t before, because I have been ignoring it for years, even though it has been screaming at me every time I go up a flight of stairs, or step on the scales, find ways to exercise that suit my size and temperament, and get educated on the dire side effects of medication instead of handing myself over to some guy/gal in a white coat. Oh no, changing my diet and getting out of bed in the morning to go for a walk is too hard. Getting educated is too hard… I’d rather pay for the drug, and then the surgery..forgetting of course that it is just not me who is paying..depending on which country you come from…that we all pay…..in so many ways…over and over again.

So we have a health crisis, where the cost of health care is skyrocketing. And the solution. Simple. Stop eating junk, get more exercise, quit smoking, get good sleep. Why is this not the only major conversation on this issue? Why don’t we talk about prevention?

Where do we focus? On everything else but the obvious. On who pays for what, and what the insurance companies can and can’t do, and how the system works, on and on endlessly. So the giant machine of noise can keep going, and once again, we are off the hook. It is someone else’s problem, and heaven forbid if I get my butt off the chair and go do something about it. Oh I can’t exercise, I have weak knee’s, I might say! A few weeks ago a guy “walked” the Kokoda Trail in Papua New Guinea, all 96 kilometers (59.6 miles) of extreme terrain, using his hands and dragging his legs, because he is a paraplegic. If he can do this, I can do exercise with weak knee’s. Take up swimming for heavens sake…but stop moaning and doing nothing!

Do I sound angry? Yes. This annoys the #@%$# out of me. We have lost touch with the very core of our human existence. Our connection to earth, nature, and our bodies. We don’t take the time to really listen to the truth that whispers to us constantly. Instead we drown it out with more…and more…noise, and stuff and complexity, and distraction.

There is an excellent article on our lost relationship with the earth, written by Ellen Gunter and published on Caroline Myss’s site, for those of you who want a more micro understanding of where humanity is at. This conversation excites and inspires me far more than the bickering going on about how much we need to reduce our carbon. The carbon issue to me is just a smoke screen (an interesting pun), on where the real focus would be better served.

And back to us, at the coal face of life (interesting metaphor). We circle back, as always, to truth. For things to change first I must change. Lets not forget that it is not just about the world out there…our energy choices out there, our care of others out there. We also have to look inside, do the work in there…care for self in there, educate ourselves in there….

Would love to hear your thoughts on this hot little topic….

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Breakdown USA

Sunday, September 27th, 2009

splitapplerock

I was 23 years old when I first visited the USA. I spent four months there, traveling through about 40 states. Since that time I have been back over 45 times.

Today I read a wonderful piece in the Huffington Post by the very insightful Caroline Myss. I have not been paying too much attention to US politics since Obama’s election.

After my first trip to the US my impression was that the rest of the world was going to get to watch the modern day equivalent of the fall of the Roman Empire. Breakdown USA. Why did I think that back then, so many years ago and at so young an age?

The United States of America appeared to me even then to be drowning in excess. That really was my impression. Spoilt. “Trans” arrogant, if that is possible. The kind of attitude which comes after years of being in an elite position, where it is no longer held as anything but deserved. “Forget the hard work, we deserve it just because.” Pure entitlement. And the rest of the world. “Forgive me, but do other people exist? I had no idea.”

I know I may sound anti American, and I am not. I am speaking of my impression of the whole, and not the parts. I really like the USA, hence my 45 plus visits, and have lived there off and on over the years.

Back in 1984 I was like some exotic bird, with my accent and origin.”Ooh..how come you speak such good English?” was a frequent question, “being from Australia?” (We don’t speak English in Australia?) (I did get asked this very same question by a professional person and citizen of the US only about 4 years ago on one of my visits. I was horrified and felt like telling this woman to climb back under her rock, if she wasn’t capable of learning a little about the world out there, beyond her privileged shores.)

Each visit I get off the plane at LAX and feel reduced to a number. No wonder people fight for their minute of fame. And until recently, was treated as was all incoming international passengers, with less regard than a mangy dog by the staff at LAX. (They must have gotten so many complaints over the years that they finally decided to teach the customs and immigration staff to be pleasant to other humans.)

Fast forward to the last few years. Like the rest of the world, I have watched in horror, which was then reduced to incredulous amusement, at the antics of the US political scene. What did it say about a country that they elected a buffoon to lead twice? And free world…if the US citizens think they are free they are under an enormous illusion!

However, I am a big picture girl and it did become apparent that Obama would not have been able to even surface if it wasn’t for the parody of Bush. So thank you Mr. Bush. On the grander scheme of things you did your job perfectly and I really am grateful to you.

Now we have Obama, who I get has massive personal integrity. The man comes from light in a world that is consumed by dark. Bush was not the dark one, he was just profoundly incapable of making a decision on his own, and was surrounded by very dark people.

My heart goes out to Obama. He is the lamb to the slaughter, surrounded by a pack of hungry wolves.

It is no small thing that the teens of the world (and a few of us older folk) are consumed by a story about vampires and wolves.(The Twilight series of books, for those who have not been aware of the massive pop cultural event sweeping the world.) Bloodsuckers and werewolves. The light/good vampires fight against the very nature of their inhumanness, refusing to fall back into the dark ways of sucking the very life out of humans. They have spent centuries curbing their intrinsic desire for more blood, their greed and thirst to kill and destroy so that they may thrive. All around them are the vampires who for centuries have not been able to transcend their primal, base nature.. They revel in their blood lust. Insatiable, cruel, predatory.
And the werewolves, represented in the books as Natures way of creating an antidote to the evil of the human blood lusting vampires. Birthed from deep in the indigenous cultures, and only resurrected when the balance goes wrong. Hmm..sound familiar? Maybe the Twilight Culture senses a larger metaphor lying deep in the romance of this story that has captured the hearts of millions.
The human and the immortal. But not just any immortal. The immortal who overcame his base nature to kill and be immune to the suffering of others.

From afar, where my view of the USA is very different, I sense that Obama has been neutered. Caroline’s article speaks so clearly of this.

So where does that leave us?

This is the bigger question, and the one that inspired me to write this article.

In my dark night of the soul article I wrote about our pathway to change as humans. In my years of experience in health and healing I have observed that the majority of us do not change unless we are brought to our knee’s. That it takes catastrophe, massive illness, disaster…for us to finally, finally be open to change.

Today I really got that this is what will happen in the US and maybe with the rest of the world. We need the disaster. The USA has only one path, and that is to break. It truly does need to fall. And fall deep. The financial crisis, the warm up, is not deep enough. I am not a doom and gloom merchant, and I do actually see this as a very positive situation overall, although the path through this period is like to have a very high cost. Last year I wrote about the shift that has already occurred, and earlier this year I wrote about my own meltdown, stating that I felt that we all had to go through our personal meltdown, and probably a collective meltdown. And that if you haven’t been through your own meltdown yet, buckle up for its coming to you and your neighborhood as sure as day becomes night.

All of us can no longer afford to pretend that big changes are not afoot. All of us need to wake up every cell in our individual and collective body. We need to learn creative integrity, and creative resilience. We need to be able to move with the change, instead of resist or ignore it. Our ability to be creative, flexible, dynamic, conscious, compassionate, informed, collaborative and have the biggest view possible is not an option.

I pray for President Obama. I really get that he is working with truth and light. But he is surrounded by darkness, of the worst kind. Insidious, malevolent, cancerous. Like the dust storms that smothered the East Coast of Australia this last week, the darkness gets into everything, and has been doing so for years, through little atrocities, that have settled silently in the corners of our souls, often beyond the level of our awareness. We have agreed to so many of these little atrocities, bit by bit. Each and every one of us. Our silence is killing us.

If I had a crystal ball, I would see the collapse of the USA, and in its collapse, the near fall of many other countries. If Obama lives through this break down, instigated not by his hand, but by the powerful forces around him, then he may well be one of the people who can lead us through the valley of the shadow of death. But as he is today, he is neutered, impotent.

And on the other side of this break down, we have, as we have had throughout history, the powerful capacity to rise through the ashes. Wiser, happier, rid of the toxic dust of silent agreement to the little atrocities. More whole. More able to live in harmony with nature.

The evil bloodsuckers who have not managed to ride above their base instincts will succumb to the vampires who have left their primal ways behind them, and have agreed to work together with the werewolves called forth by the wisdom of the ancients. And the human and the immortal shall be together in love. Amen.

Your thoughts…?

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Leadership Development and the Future of Business

Wednesday, November 12th, 2008

What is the Future of Business and why is Leadership Development important? Well, since I am not a psychic nor of divine providence, I, like you, can only guess. However, there are some clear writings on the multitude of walls around the world. Here are some of the writings I am seeing clearly written.

 

1. BIG changes are in place. We are not rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, not this time. No amount of tinkering will allow a return to the status quo. We are in process of seismic shifts. 

 

2. Seismic shifts require a NEW mindset. However, is is not about ejecting the old in entirety, but taking from the old and transcending to the new. In order to do this we need to reconnect with the very purpose of business. What is it there for? Is it just a venue to create big money for a small group of people? Is it to take advantage of times, events and circumstances-to rape and pillage? Why was business created? For what reason? Does the model we have now work? Is it good for us for tomorrow? How committed is our company to leadership development and why? 

 

Show me the leaders with the new mindset? Certainly they are not the ex CEO of Lehman Brothers. Maybe we could look at some of the young guys behind Google, MySpace? And how is their mindset different? Do they thirst for leadership development that builds not just growth, but perspective and width?

 

3. The business model we have now is flawed and the flaws are finally showing cracks. How do I know this. Well, here are a few of the cracks. 

 

The gap between the rich and the poor is getting wider every day. Plus, less people are in the wealthy group. What is good about this model? Not much, unless you are one of those 3-5% of the wealthy.

 

We are going through accelerated acceleration, where our technology is changing each second. However, the business of business has not really changed in 400 years. Show me one other institution that could say the same? Marriage, Monarchy, the Democratic process? Our leadership model has also largely stayed the same. The system is designed around a hierarchy, which is not bad but could be far more integrative, moving to a holarchical system-similar to complex biological systems. (The human body does do a pretty good job in managing complex functions)

 

Making money from money without any contribution of any kind in the form of work-be it physical, mental, or spiritual, is a sham. Multiply zero by zero and we get zero. Nothing comes from nothing. However, this little game has been in play for many years, and now we are beginning to see the truth of it. The future of business is about creating real value, value that adds too and has meaning.

 

Paying people to do nothing else but to show an increase in shareholder value is an extremely narrow perspective of worth. What about how they did this, who and what was stepped on or over to do this, and what are the costs-today, tomorrow, in 20 years and in 200 years? Surely at the least the CEO’s of large companies should be measured through an integrated lens that assesses profitability AND happy, fulfilled, engaged people, AND the long term effects on the environment AND the level of input to the local and greater community AND the value of overall contribution to society that their companies product adds? If the CEO’s score well on all aspects, then pay them well. But don’t pay them obscene salaries for only making money. On this note the demand for leadership development is HIGH.

 

Endless growth, year in an year out, is unsustainable. No where in nature, with the exception of cancer, does endless growth exist. And even cancer has its use-by date, when the host is consumed by the cancer. To every spring comes an autumn and winter, enabling a new spring. Keep farming the same land over and over and it will fail. This is not rocket science. We need to take time to consolidate, breath, rest. And we need to build this into our businesses consciously. Show me the business that has an integrated model that assumes growth, followed by consolidation and recovery, followed by the next level of growth. And would we, the shareholder, be happy with this? Would you be accepting of your superannuation portfolio going through growth, then a platform stage, then growth? What would you require as the shareholder to be satisfied with this model? 

 

Our system for measuring success and performance is a dud. It is mostly based on endless growth, and increasing shareholder return (whether that share holder is you bank, your investments, your spouse, or the shareholders). We need more integral methods to measure success. 

 

And by the way, who said that the work of a teacher of our children is worth so much less (extremely less) than the work of some guy who knows how to make money for the shareholder? No, I am not a socialist (for lack of a better description I would say I am a conscious capitalist)- I just question our values. The value of caring for others is rated as low. Yet if you have ever needed care you know how much you would pay to get the best. And you know just how much a good carer gives above and beyond the norm. Are they really worth so much less that the Fuld’s of the world (ex CEO of Lehman Bros.)  One of the biggest questions on the table now is what are our values and do they serve us? For until we reassess our values around our measure of success we will all be caught in the same old merry-go-round of growth and greed, and the desire for more stuff. Money is NOT the measure of success. It is only a fraction of the measure. Ask anyone who has a lot of money.   

 

4. The environment demands change. Yep, its true, whether you believe in the extremes of environmental catastrophe or not, the elephant in the room is that we must have more awareness of our every action and its effects on everything else.(Cradle to Cradle) And yes, increasing our global population is not going to help. The earth does not need one more baby. Increasing the population may be good for the short term, to keep the eternal growth engine going, but is surely is stuffing our future. We need to get creative and figure another way to take care of our elderly, keep the new jobs going, and all the other goods and services ever increasing numbers of new babies create. (I am not advocating no children, but we really don’t need more than two children per couple-unless of course you adopt one of the many children who need love and care.)

 

I could write more about any one of these topics. And I am sure I could find more writings on more walls indicating that the times they are a changing.

 

Change is a messy process. Humans usually find it mildly scary to frankly terrifying. At best we don’t like it.

 

Companies right now are slashing budgets. Trimming fat. There is a lot of fat that is good to trim. For example- executive perks like limousine services, first class,and fat bonus’s. Only recently I heard about the CEO who insisted that the very staff who had tied themselves in knots to meet target had had their Christmas Party budget slashed to the price of a cheap meal and a glass of wine, while he refused to take a taxi to the airport and insisted on waiting for a limousine. The CEO of JAL (Japanese Airlines) took a different track. He slashed his own salary, in line with other staff and took away all of his entitlements. He wants the company and its people to all pull through. So he started with himself. Which company would you prefer to work with?

 

In 1992 Bill Gates quoted in Forbes magazine “Take our 20 best people away, and I will tell you that Microsoft will become an unimportant company.”

What separates Microsoft from other companies is not its product, but its people. 

 

And it times of massive change people need support, development and input on their NEW mindset. They need leadership development and not just any kind, but the kind that speaks to the future of business.

 

Slashing the leadership development budget shows that the company is operating in the old world of business, where value is placed on the share holder return and growth and the CEO’s continued bonus scheme. In these companies at these times, the issue of people again goes to the bottom of the pile of priorities. People…people? Who are they? 

 

Quotes Rupert Murdoch in the second of his series of Boyer Lectures this past weekend, November 2008, in the midst of the worst global economic crisis is 100 years.

 

“If you want to keep your company in the lead, you need to invest in your people.”

 

Now more than ever.

 

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Atlas Has Shrugged

Thursday, September 18th, 2008
These are trying times and likely to get more so from a financial market sense. While I do not claim to be an expert on what is going on, I have spent the last 6 months studying the whole system and its demise for several hours  every day. This plus my every day ongoing reading from Buckminster Fuller, who talked about money/banking/business structure and its flaws 70 years ago until his death in the 80′s. I always thought in regards to Bucky’s financial work, he was a bit of a crack pot conspiracy theorist, but, no, in his usual quite genius, he studied the history, systems and structures with his usual rigor, and he is pretty much been ~on the money~:)
 I can feel confident in saying that at core, this is an INTEGRITY issue. To date, unless you are God, something does not come from nothing. (The Haldon Collider in Switzerland is attempting to explore what happened at the BIg Bang-but even then, they start with an energetic something). And yet this is exactly how our economic system seems to be built. We have created enormous something from nothing. People who knew how to play this game, have become ~rich~ from this strategy. (I put rich in brackets with purpose-for how real is this wealth?) It has had nothing to do with work, or legitimate exchange of energy. Just the opposite, it has had to do with non energy-or non stuff- big black holes of non stuff. Monopoly money.  The shadow side of real capital, (something that has intrinsic VALUE). While it is possible to argue that the players have had every right to play this game, and they have because it has been the prevailing game, like the mess we have made with the environment, the game has been very short term focused, very narcissistic, and built on greed and fear, with complete disregard to consequences, and long term affects, or truth.
I have been floored to discover just how the system works. I feel pretty sure most people don’t know. We assume that the deposits we make go towards other people’s loans etc..and on it goes. But no. That is not how it works. My deposit enables up to 30 times the deposited amount to be CREATED. From where you might well ask? From thin air. Something from nothing. Please check out the link below to the video clip that explains this.  And send it on…people need to know this. How come I have spent a lifetime on ongoing education, and in my mid forties, didn’t know this? I feel like a fool.
While the current situation goes well and truly beyond this level of complexity, and is a fascinating study in greed, plus what I call ~little atrocities~ saying yes to small seemingly innocuous actions that are borderline in integrity, that pave the way for another little atrocity, that in its accumulative affects takes the perpetrator into full blown criminal activity (the cooked frog syndrome-place a frog into a pot of cold water and gradually turn up the heat and the frog goes to sleep as he gets cooked), its essence is built on a lack of Integrity. Lack of personal integrity, lack of systems integrity, lack of perspective integrity. As Bucky said, we either make money or we make sense, and I have struggled to understand just what he meant, and in what context he was speaking. Now it seems clear. For those of you who want to really get Bucky’s perspective of this, check out his book,  Critical Path, especially Part 1.
If we add Integral Theory on top of Bucky’s work, with the Western World centred at Orange-which is all about keeping score, the achiever self, stuff accumulation, better than the Jones’s etc, we really begin to see the game at play. Orange is breaking down to green. (which has its own unique problems)
The good news is- and in truth I am excited about the events, even though I don’t expect to come out unscathed financially- that in order for there to be change of any note, we need to see the old structure disintegrate. We need Atlas to shrug and for it to be a decent shrug. For most of the somethings out of nothings to go back to nothings, which is in truth where they always where.
In the mean time..what can we do? What can I do? What can you do?
1. Get educated if you are not already. The world has shifted and we all need to be awake and alert.
2. Get your own house in order- and I mean really in order. To this purpose I have attached a Personal Inventory-a little check list of things to clean up. Some of these things may seem a long way from the bigger topic at hand. How can cleaning out your garage help? We are talking about foundational work. Integrity means wholeness, and wholeness doesn’t exclude anything. The more in Integrity you are, the better able to weather the storms, emotionally, financially, spiritually, and in relationship. This is our work right now. To go into all the dark places, in your own life, in your environment, in your work, and clean up and out, and get back into the highest form of Integrity you can summon. 
3. Recognise that this process is the pulling of the shadow out of the closet, and that once the shadow is out, and in the light, it does go away. What we do not want though is for the shadow to jump back into another closet, but for it to be dealt with squarely. RIP and move on. Therefore, this is a great time, with incredible opportunities.
Out of EMERGEncy, we EMERGE. Humans become incredibly creative when the chips are down. New opportunities are everywhere. Focus on this after your house is in order.
As always, I welcome any feedback, response, etc.
The link is below,plus a little quote pulled from todays News Dissector, www.mediachannel.org (made me laugh)
warmly, 
Christine

 

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279&q=money+is+debt&total=1856&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

 

In other economic news, President Bush announced another massive bailout today, saying that he had completed a deal for China to buy the United States in its entirety.

“This was a difficult deal to pull off,” Mr. Bush acknowledged. “The hard part was identifying the parts of the U.S. that China didn’t already own.”

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Freddy Mac, Fannie Mae, and a little town downunder

Tuesday, September 9th, 2008

Today in the local paper- (to put this in context, I live in a beach resort community of 450,000 people, in a country with only 21 million people), the headline was “Rescuing Freddy and Fanny May Save our Jimmy’s”.

Our little town as a premier tourist destination for local Australian’s depends on development of high rise resorts and hotels for its healthy survival. Our “Jimmy’s” are in reference to one of our most well known developers, who is in serious trouble, because of the credit crisis birthed to a large degree in the USA and built on greed of the rankest kind.

 

I do follow daily the changing landscape of the USA political and financial sector. I am watching with bated breath the presidential election. I only wished I could vote. The truth of the matter is, that who ever the US people do vote for, will affect me, my community on the other side of the world, and everyone else in the world. I only wished the USA people as a whole woke up to that fact.

 

So yes, I do get mad when many of the US population don’t show up to vote. They demonstrate by their very negligent action, that they have zero to no awareness of the rest of the world, and that the rest of the world is truly affected by their voting actions and inactions. They continue to show their parochial, narrow minded, grossly ignorant and extremely arrogant attitude. It is exactly the part of the USA that the rest of the world has come to loathe. 

 

That is not to say that all American’s are like this. Most of my best friends are Americans. They are well aware of the implications. They travel, read world news, and are open to the larger context of global everythings. They have for the last 8 years, held their heads in shame.

 

The biggest risk is that on November 4, the USA will once again elect idiocracy. Scary even still, that we could have a fundamentalist creationist, book burning, gun toting, only last year passport issued person in the White House, even if she is in the second room. If that does happen, then on the good side, the slide into US oblivion will be fast. Then we, the rest of the world, and those more awake people in the US, can get on with building better things, the phoenix from the ashes.  

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The Shift Has Already Occurred-Wake up

Monday, June 23rd, 2008

The past few weeks I have been feeling very restless, looking for and finding distractions, not able to focus for any period of time.

I am an avid and committed observer of the world news, current affairs, plus have been studying history, and daily read from my greatest teacher, R Buckminster Fuller. Bucky talked about prognostication, that in order to predict the future, one had to draw the string of the arrow very far back into history. And that he did. He studied history and kept records, covering many areas, from energy use, discovery of new elements, technology advancement. In the 30’s he made over 50 predictions, of which 47 have occurred. (Including man on the moon).

Bucky also started to talk about our ill conceived use of oil and its costs, way back in the 1930’s. He asked a renowned oil geologist, Francois de Chadenedes, to work out how much in energy, from start to finish over the life time of the creation of oil, would it cost nature to make one gallon of oil. In the currency of the early 1980’s that price was over $1 million per gallon.(see note below for the details of this) 

Bucky always based his working premise on the principle of Synergy. That the behaviour of the parts taken separately could not predict the behaviour of the whole, that you could not predict a butterfly from studying a caterpillar, and therefore you had to start, without exception, with the whole. That if we are going to study energy, we had to start with cosmic accounting, and reduce it to local accounting, and not the other way around, which is what we have done. That in cosmic accounting terms the use of petroleum to provide energy was always far far too expensive. 

That our energy input from natural resources has always been in far more abundance that we would ever need-sun, wind, waves-and that the only problem with using them as energy source is that big business has not found a way to put a meter between the energy source and the user. (Plus to date our technology around this has been in lag, and the price has been much higher than the use of fossil fuels, although this is changing rapidly)

And that the nearest nuclear reactor we need is perfectly positioned 152 million kms away, and is called the Sun.

Bucky considered our fossil fuels to be natures own savings account, an Earth Bank, not to be stolen by exploiters. Everyone knows that we should live on our energy income and not our savings account. In our case on earth, our energy income far far exceeds our energy spend. Everyday. There is no scarcity of energy, we simply have been exploiting the wrong form.

It has always been apparent that oil would run out. We have all been living in a delusional world where this would not happen soon. Now we know that it is happening, faster than we thought.

The bad news is that our lives have already changed. The shift has already occurred. The use of cars, planes, trucks and other oil consumers as they currently exist, is the dinosaur in the room. Petrol prices are not going down, food prices and transport costs likewise are not going down. Not until we create solutions. Which we will do. But not before the situation gets worse for everyone.

I realised today that my sense of restlessness and discombobulation is because the shift has happened, and that I am frustrated that people are going about their business as if it hasn’t, as if the world will go on as we have known it. It can’t and won’t. Everything and everyone is affected. No one escapes this. Travel as we know it, driving to work, school, driving anywhere, how we consume food, how we work, where we live and work, what has value, who has wealth. It all is changing. Fast. The Middle East will lose its power (because of its total dependance on oil).

The good news. Well the environment is going to be happy. We simply have to stop our use of fossil fuels. It was always a short sighted strategy. We have all been asleep at the wheel, literally, on that one. In complete denial. 

We must emerge through emergency, which we will do, in the nick of time. Creativity will increase as people are forced by necessity to invent new ways of transport, lifestyle, and all the countless other uses of petroleum.

There will be a massive redistribution of wealth. This too will be a good thing, as there is opportunity for an exploration of our money systems, which are in serious need of systems change of the highest degree. And, there will be an opportunity for the gap between the rich and the poor to be re-calibrated. 

We will, at least for the briefest moment, consider the long term effects of our next actions. We will start with the whole, and work from there. 

More people will challenge solutions and ask more questions, there will be an automatic raising of consciousness. The environment will make that essential. We will not be able to get away with our shortsighted lack of personal responsibility. There will be no sand to stick our head into, no away to go to.

There will be tremendous opportunities. Our lives will be radically different. We will simply have to move towards natures economy. Either that, or not make it.  And there will be very big losses. No one will walk away without being affected in some way.

In Bucky’s words

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

We have the opportunity to build the new model. Indeed, many of the new models already exist, and have existed for a long time. 

It is an exciting time. People will need support to wrap their heads and hearts around the change. They will go through stress, loss, grief, fear. We will endure. It is our human way, to emerge through emergency.

I write this to urge you to wake up. The shift has happened, and what is occurring now is the lag between the shift and the realisation and daily implication. 

Everything has changed. Everything. Yield to it, as nature does, or fight, resist, deny. 

The world is in our hands.

Blessings, 

Christine

Note. “The script of Francois de Chardenedes “Scenario of Petroleum Production” makes it clear that, with all that cosmic-energy processing (as rain, wind, and gravitational pressure) and the processing time (paid for at rtes you and I pay for household electrical energy), it costs nature well over a million dollars to produce each gallon of petroleum.” Critical Path, page xxxv.

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